The Hindu

Bangalore, Dec 14: The retired Gujarat Director-General of Police R.B. Sreekumar described communalism as a “devil that has come out of the dead body of religion”.

Speaking at a national-level seminar organised by Komu Sauharda Vedike here on Saturday, he said that he found the politics of communalism abhorrent as a practising Hindu, quoting copiously from various religious texts. The Sangh Parivar, he added, “was a threat to the Hindu way of life.”

In India, mixing religion and politics had reached alarming levels comparable to medieval Europe, said Mr. Sreekumar and added that the religious heads were themselves “surprised by the number of politicians queuing up before their doors.” He called for “re-spiritualisation and de-politicisation of religion”.

He said that there had been a steady communalisation of Gujarat society by conscious political design, and quoted incidents he had witnessed as an IPS officer in Gujarat. He said that it was now hard to imagine that the State once had a large number of Hindus participating in Moharrum celebrations. “Religious hatred has now entered the bone marrow of the people,” he said.

Mr. Sreekumar spoke about the persecution and threats he had faced for speaking the truth and going by the rule book as a police officer. He said that Sangh Parivar elements had used anti-social elements among Muslims to ensure that about half the victims of communal riots that followed the Godhra train fire in 2002 did not speak up against them.

The former MLC A.K. Subbiah emphasised the need to expose not only political parties that were openly communal, but also “communal elements in the so-called secular parties.”

He described communalism as a “virus that first attacked Gujarat and has now spread to Karnataka.”

Kannada translation of Ram Puniyani’s book, Communalism: Illustrated Primer, was released at the seminar.